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Legacy of a Venerated Magazine Editor Lives Large on the Newsstand

Posted by Unknown on Sunday, September 28, 2014

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Media |Legacy of a Venerated Magazine Editor Lives Large on the Newsstand



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The GQ editor Art Cooper, who died in 2003, addressing GQ’s Men of the Year event in 2002. Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect




When Adam Sachs was named editor in chief of Saveur last week, he became the head of an award-winning food magazine. He also became something else: the latest in a long line of magazine chiefs who worked under Art Cooper, a legendary former editor of GQ.


Mr. Cooper, who died in 2003, was the top editor at GQ for 20 years, transforming the magazine from a fashion-centric title into a showcase for distinguished journalism.


But his greatest legacy, perhaps, is the small army of top magazine editors whose careers he groomed. In addition to Mr. Sachs, his protégés include the current heads of GQ (Jim Nelson), Esquire (David Granger), Bon Appetit (Adam Rapoport), This Old House (Scott Omelianuk), Mr Porter (John Brodie) and O (Lucy Kaylin).


Former top editors who also worked for Mr. Cooper include Kate White (Cosmopolitan), Brandon Holley (Lucky), Eliot Kaplan (Philadelphia magazine) and Maximillian Potter (5280 [The Denver Magazine]).


“Like Gatsby, he collected people around him,” Mr. Omelianuk said of the editors and writers Mr. Cooper drew to GQ. “You fell into the orbit of Art Cooper.”


Last week, Mr. Sachs’s hiring — and calls from a reporter — prompted a new round of recollections about Mr. Cooper, his vast influence on the magazine world and his (very dry) martini lunches at the Grill Room at the Four Seasons, where he suffered a stroke that led to his death at the age of 65.


Mr. Kaplan, now an executive at Hearst, said Mr. Cooper exuded confidence as an editor and instilled that same self-assuredness in his staff. At Family Weekly magazine, where Mr. Cooper was editor before GQ, Mr. Kaplan recalls his former boss sending Ms. White to interview the Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown. He also told Ms. White that she would someday run Cosmopolitan, which she did for 14 years.


“He made it clear we were going to be editors in chiefs someday,” Mr. Kaplan said. “He believed in you even when you didn’t.”


The editors mentored by Mr. Cooper came up during an era when the magazine industry was thriving. Today, it is a very different environment. Mr. Rapoport said that instead of boozy lunches, he often hits the gym. And after leaving the office, he tries to stay on top of his Twitter feed. Despite such changes, Mr. Rapoport said that the lessons he learned about magazines from Mr. Cooper are as relevant as ever.


“If the person at the top isn’t passionate and enthusiastic and believe in what they’re doing,” Mr. Rapoport said, “the magazine cannot be more than mediocre.”


And in today’s climate for magazines, where budgets are tighter and the future is uncertain, Mr. Granger of Esquire said he often thought back to how decisive Mr. Cooper was.


“He gave the appearance of always knowing what to do,” Mr. Granger said. “The people you lead benefit from a certain level of confidence.”


As for Mr. Sachs, the new editor at the helm of Saveur, he was a senior staff writer at GQ before Mr. Cooper “strongly encouraged” him to leave the magazine. That prompted him to become a freelance food and travel writer.


“It certainly hurt my feelings at the time,” Mr. Sachs said. “But it was probably a good kick in the rear. Maybe Art knew what he was doing, or it was a happy accident that set me on a path.”



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